In various fields, reducing the thickness of a substrate often is critical. For example, in the field of quartz devices, reducing the thickness of a quartz wafer is desired so as to increase the oscillation frequency. Particularly, in the semiconductor industry, efforts to further reduce the thickness of a semiconductor wafer are in progress to respond to the goal of reducing the thickness of semiconductor packages as well as for high-density fabrication by chip lamination technology. Thickness reduction is performed by so-called back side grinding of a semiconductor wafer on the surface opposite that containing pattern-formed circuitry. Usually, in conventional techniques of grinding the back side, or surface, of a wafer and conveying it while holding the wafer with only a backgrinding protective tape, thickness reduction can be accomplished in practice only to a thickness of about 150 micrometers (μm) because of problems such as uneven thickness of the ground wafer or warping of the wafer with protective tape after grinding. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 6-302569 discloses a method where a wafer is held on a ring-form frame through a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, the back surface of this wafer held on the frame is ground and the wafer is conveyed to the next step. However, this method has not yet attained a remarkable improvement over the present level of wafer thickness that may be obtained without encountering the aforementioned problems of unevenness or warping.
A method of grinding the back surface of a wafer and conveying it while firmly fixing the wafer on a hard support through an adhesive agent has also been proposed. This intends to prevent the breakage of a wafer during the back surface grinding and conveyance by supporting the wafer using such a support. According to this method, a wafer can be processed to a lower thickness level as compared with the above-described method, however, the thin wafer cannot be separated from the support without breaking the wafer and therefore, this method cannot be practically used as a method of thinning a semiconductor wafer.